Image Source : China Visual

BEIJING, January 31 (TMTPOST) —— China's eight airlines and three airports suffered serious losses in 2022, except for Xiamen Airport which achieved a small profit, according to the 2022 annual performance forecast of 12 listed Chinese airlines released on Monday.

China's three state-owned airlines, Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern are all expected to lose over 30 billion yuan ($4.4 billion). According to the median value, the three airlines are expected to lose 107.5 billion yuan ($15.9 billion) in 2022 or about 300 million yuan ($44 million) per day on average.

HNA Holdings followed the three airlines with a forecast loss of 18.5 billion($2.7 billion) to 22 billion yuan ($3.2 billion).

Juneyao Airlines, Spring Airlines, and China Express, the three private airlines with high profits in the past, also experienced losses in 2022 far greater than in 2021. Spring Airlines, which maintained a slight profit in 2021, is expected to lose over 2.35 billion yuan ($347 million) in 2022.

The losses at airports are relatively small compared with the hundreds of billions of yuan lost by airlines, but still far larger than in 2021. Shanghai Airport is expected to lose 2.84 billion($420 million) to 2.99 billion yuan($422 million), with a loss of 1.711 billion yuan($253 million) in 2021. Shenzhen Baoan International Airport is expected to lose 1.076 billion yuan($159 million) to 1.176 billion yuan($174 million) in 2022. Baiyun Airport is expected to lose 998 million yuan ($147 million) to 1.22 billion yuan($180 million) .

Compared to the loss-generating airports, Xiamen Airport is quite outstanding. It is expected to profit over 21 million yuan ($3 million). It made a profit of 142 million yuan ($21 million) in 2021. Experts said that such earnings are likely to come mainly from non-operating income, which is evidenced by Xiamen Airport's financial statement.

The Civil Aviation Authority set a target for the industry to "strive to achieve break-even" in 2023. However, as international flights are still relatively slow to resume, it will be quite difficult to achieve the goal.